Mr. Tharoor’s article is (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1864196-2,00.html)

And I quote,
.. But this time the terrorists may have gone too far. The murderers of Mumbai made special efforts to single out American and British nationals among their hostages, and they killed the Israelis running Mumbai’s Jewish center. This was clearly not just an attack on India; they were taking on the “Jews and crusaders” of al-Qaeda lore. If it turns out that the massacre in Mumbai was planned in or directed from Pakistani territory, the consequences for Pakistan are bound to be severe..

He considers the terrorists having “gone too far” only when they targeted foreign nationals? Really? Is this sentiment echoed by everyone now? Agreeably, the states who were targeted are powerful militarily and dominate geo-political debates with firm voices – but can India afford to have its own commentators not bring the government to task at its inefficacy?

For once, now more than ever, lets not consider the deaths of thousands of people in terrorist attacks over the last decade as having been unimportant. After all, it should not take attacks on other countries on Indian soil to make statements such as the one Mr. Tharoor made above. Things had gone far enough when the Parliament attacks occurred in 2001 – and further with the multiple blasts across India earlier this year. If anything, these attacks are the clarion call that should affect all decision making authorities in India and the world – and incite them to gear up and deal with the scourge of terrorism.

Of course, this is easier said than done. I’m sure I’m not alone on the internet echoing what must now sound like a broken record of demands. Yet, I still haven’t come across a single article or a policy paper that lucidly highlights the challenges that the government faces in order to get its act together.

Political analysts have pointed out time and again about the dangers of ignorance, mis-management and corruption at various levels of the Indian state apparatus. Pertinent as these points are, it is my opinion that the situation is quite salvageable without having to design or wait for a panacea that will rid us of all problems. What we really need is an extensive code for the political class, and complete autonomy to a national body to oversee their activities – something on the lines of the election commission perhaps – which contains the cabinet secretary, the prime minister, the chief justice and the speakers of both houses of parliament. Additionally, the chief election officer and the central vigilance commissioner can offer their services to it.

Too often do you hear of ineffective policing or law making because a certain politician lacks the personal integrity or resolve to push things to completion. Bureaucrats, as much as the media loves to revile them – serve an important purpose of keeping the state machinery flowing as their political heads change. They are, however, rendered powerless in situations such as these where a politician’s will can close doors to necessary resources that are direly needed. I refer to the above as being issues not during an emergency but in times of calm, when politicians need to see reason and put their heads together and work with, rather than against each other. Are you listening, Raj Thackeray and Mamta Bannerjee?

Such an oversight committee would have the power to bring them to task, as well as be the supreme authority to keep any politician in the country in check. As we move on with the creation of a new federal intelligence agency, lay the roadmap for better inter-agency coordination, create committees to analyze what went wrong, fire scapegoat politicians, and generally “shake up the establishment” – let us also concentrate some of those resources into determining why the political leadership is so fragile and unresponsive – and take measures to address it.

After all, if elected leaders are supposed to watch over the well being of the people who elect them – then Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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If you have any questions or thoughts, don't hesitate to reach out. You can find me as @viksit on Twitter.

My attempts at creating a list of movies I want to see. Comments welcome on additional ideas! You know that feeling when someone tells you of an *awesome* movie thats highly recommended that you forget about the next day – and then rack your brain to remember what it was?

This post is intended to help alleviate that!

Updates: (I realized I’ve seen a bunch of these already, but keeping them here for completeness’s sake!)

Maria – full of grace
City of Angels
Cinema Paradiso
Before Sunset (*)
Before Sunrise (*)
Shine
Ondskan
Stardust Memories
Romance and Cigarettes
Cha no aji
The Honeymoon Killers
Mies vailla menneisyyttä
The Wind Will Carry Us

Movies

“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) Stanley Kubrick
“The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut
“8 1/2” (1963) Federico Fellini
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
“Alien” (1979) Ridley Scott
“All About Eve” (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
“Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen
“Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola*
“Bambi” (1942) Disney
“The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
“The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
“The Bicycle Thief” (1949) Vittorio De Sica
“The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
“Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott
“Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
“Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
“Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
“Breathless” (1959 Jean-Luc Godard
“Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
“Carrie” (1975) Brian DePalma
“Casablanca” (1942) Michael Curtiz
“Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
“Children of Paradise” / “Les Enfants du Paradis” (1945) Marcel Carne
“Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
“Citizen Kane” (1941) Orson Welles
“A Clockwork Orange” (1971) Stanley Kubrick
“The Crying Game” (1992) Neil Jordan
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
“Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
“Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
“Do the Right Thing” (1989 Spike Lee
“La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini
“Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
“Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
“E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) Steven Spielberg
“Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
“The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) Irvin Kershner
“The Exorcist” (1973) William Friedkin
“Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
“Fight Club” (1999) David Fincher
“Frankenstein” (1931) James Whale
“The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
“The Godfather,” “The Godfather, Part II” (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
“Gone With the Wind” (1939) Victor Fleming
“GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
“The Graduate” (1967) Mike Nichols
“Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
“It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra
“Jaws” (1975) Steven Spielberg
“The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
“Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) David Lean
“M” (1931) Fritz Lang
“Mad Max 2” / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller
“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston
“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
“Metropolis” (1926) Fritz Lang
“Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
“North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
“Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
“On the Waterfront” (1954) Elia Kazan
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
“Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
“Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
“Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
“Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
“Pulp Fiction” (1994) Quentin Tarantino
“Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa
“Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) Nicholas Ray
“Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
“Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
“The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
“Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks
“The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
“Schindler’s List” (1993) Steven Spielberg
“The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
“The Seven Samurai” (1954) Akira Kurosawa
“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
“Some Like It Hot” (1959) Billy Wilder
“A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
“A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Elia Kazan
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
“Taxi Driver” (1976) Martin Scorsese
“The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
“Tokyo Story” (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
“Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
“Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
“Vertigo” (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
“West Side Story” (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah
“The Wizard of Oz” (1939) Victor Fleming

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If you have any questions or thoughts, don't hesitate to reach out. You can find me as @viksit on Twitter.

I’ve been thinking about whether I should migrate old blog (2001-2007) entries to this site’s new avatar. On one hand, they speak volumes about what I was thinking about at that point and are fun (mostly only to me) to look back upon. And that is the flip side as well – you tend to reflect on how crazy/stupid you were from your 2008 persona.

Hmm.

Oh well, there’s always the Wayback machine to keep log of stuff :)

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If you have any questions or thoughts, don't hesitate to reach out. You can find me as @viksit on Twitter.